Fix You
by SeaBreeze
Summary: Perhaps in death, Atton Rand will finally be able to do for the Exile what he has never been able to do before.


Fix You

By Seabreeze

A/N: One-shot Atton/Exile piece. I re-wrote his cut death scene from the game.

Disclaimer: "Fix You" belongs to the band Coldplay, while characters used in this story as well as the basic situation belong to Lucasarts, Obsidian, etc.

- - - - - -

He was dying.

It had been a pathetically short battle, a joke, really. He had been fighting alongside her for so long that he thought he had gotten better, thought having a light saber in his hands meant he could go up against the best and, if nothing else, give them a good fight.

Pathetic.

He sat in a pool of his own blood, his dismembered arm sitting a few feet away from him. An insult. Darth Sion had played with him like a demented child plays with a doll. There had been no battle, only torture. He had failed her, failed to protect her, failed to fight for her, failed to prove to himself that he was good enough to help her…

He had convinced himself that with his love for her, he could do anything. Kreia was right. He was an idiot, a fool, an imbecile.

But he would not die until he saw her, one last time. Had to see her face, hear her voice, explain, explain everything… apologize… he failed to fight Sion for her, but he could fight his own death easily. He would not go without an explanation, he owed her at least that much…

He bathed in pain. Every nerve cried for him to let it end, to let go of this life and then he would pass quickly. He couldn't let her… couldn't let her go without knowing… he had spent all his time lying to her, hiding from her, keeping things from her, and now was the time to set everything straight… he should have told her so long ago, it made no sense, now, it had been a childish fear that kept him from showing her the truth…she could've known the truth all along…so senseless…

_When you try your best but you don't succeed_

_When you get what you want but not what you need_

_When you feel so tired but you can't sleep_

_Stuck in reverse_

She had felt his pain long before she saw him, long before she could come find him, and she knew to expect the worst. She waited torturously until the moment she felt him disappear into the Force, but it didn't come… she knew he was holding on, holding on for her…

She fought as quickly as she could, nearly losing her life in the process for being so careless, and ran faster than she had ever ran before to find the pilot who had somehow, when she wasn't paying attention, stolen her heart, and now lie dying, waiting for her to come to him.

Tears flooded her cheeks long before she reached him. She could feel his pain and dreaded seeing him. He, too, dreaded her seeing him in a helpless, dying position… but he waited for her, and she would not leave him to die alone.

She had never seen anything so horrific in her life. Sion had torn him to pieces, literally… his arm rested, detached, several feet away… she felt at that moment as if she, too, were lying shattered on the floor in her own blood… her body took over her mind. She had an overwhelming urge to vomit, to scream in horror and sorrow, to tear herself to shreds with her own hands… but her grief would not be sated by physical reactions or pain… she felt her heart disintegrate in her chest and fell to her knees at his side.

"Hey… Beautiful. What… took… you so long?" his grin was macabre, teeth, eyes, cheeks bleeding as he smiled up at her painfully but with pure love.

"Oh, Atton," she breathed, reaching to stroke his bloody, ashen face with fingers that shook violently.

"Glad you made it," he grunted, cringing as blood gushed torrentially out of the socket where his arm had been only minutes previously. "Thought… thought I could… help you out."

"You were wonderful, Atton," she whispered, tears falling onto his bloodstained jacket at an alarming rate. He laughed, coughing up blood.

"Total… joke. Completely pathetic. As… usual."

Her vision was completely gone with the tears that filled her eyes, and she applied every bit of the Force she could into healing him, taking some of the pain away. It drained her, sapped from her own life source, but she could have cared less.

"Thanks… beautiful…" he said, sighing as his blood flow slowed and minor cuts and burns faded. "Don't… look too long. I'm ugly… inside and out, now." He grinned again, closing his eyes as she pressed her palm against his forehead. She tried to speak, tried to tell him he was wrong, all wrong, but at that moment a sob wracked her body so hard her empty stomach heaved, and she sobbed helplessly into her hands. She felt a cold, shaky finger touch her knee.

"Hey," he whispered. "Don't go… soft on me… now."

"Atton," she cried, and stopped, so overwhelmed with sobs that she found she was having a harder time speaking than he was. She grabbed his one hand tightly between hers. When she regained her composure, she continued. "What am I…? What do I _do_ without…?!"

_And the tears come streaming down your face_

_When you lose something you can't replace_

_When you love someone but it goes to waste_

_Could it be worse?_

"Don't tell me… you've got… a crush on…me," he joked weakly, squeezing her fingers with his lightly. She only sobbed in reply. "When we… when we met," he said as her fingers traced his face lovingly, memorizing every detail, "You… in your underwear." He chuckled. "Thought… I'd get to… see that at least… a hundred more times – before…"

She laughed through her tears, finding it absurdly funny. On his deathbed, he wanted to talk about her underwear. Typical Atton.

"What're… you waiting for?" he asked with a wink. She giggled wildly, and before long her giggles turned into gasping, choking, rib-cracking sobs… he reached up shakily and touched her hair softly. "Loved you… from the moment I first saw you… thought you were a dream…an angel... Meant every word. Tried to play it off… as a joke… wasn't funny. Just thought… you should know…"

She did not hesitate to press her lips, dry and cracked, into his bloody ones. She kissed him desperately, passionately. He kissed her back with surprising gusto for a man lying in a pool of his own blood. She reveled in his softness, his gentleness, wishing she had been smart enough to do this long ago. He chuckled bloodily against her mouth.

"Coulda… told me… would've loved – " his body jerked with painful looking spasms, and she knew he had lost too much blood, and should've died long before she arrived. She smoothed his hair away from his face.

"I love you, Atton Rand." She said solemnly, pressing another kiss to his lips.

"Didn't want… you to see me… can't stand it…" he was shaking now, convulsions that meant death was near. He turned wide, frightened eyes to hers. "Can die… a happy man now that…_you_…love me." He smiled so peacefully, his body jerking and bleeding profusely in grotesque contrast, and she smiled back, her sobs subsiding as he seemed to separate from his physical pain. "Sorry… for everything… loved you… so much, all along…"

"Don't you dare apologize," she said severely into his ear. "Don't you dare." Her tears had literally dried up, but she continued to cry nonetheless. "You can't leave thinking those thoughts… I love you so much, Atton. You make me so… so happy." She was overcome with a mad desire to trade his life for hers, and pressed her lips to his brutally, sending all of her life Force into the kiss. She felt her body and soul weaken, and she felt intense relief in knowing that she would not have to suffer the loss of him. She sagged, her body falling loosely beside his. Atton, filled with her newfound strength, wrenched his lips away from hers.

_And high up above or down below_

_When you're too in love to let it go_

"No!" he said, trying with all his might to drag himself away from her.

"Better you… than me." She said, echoing something she had said to him a long, long time ago. She felt death close by and smiled, eyes shutting happily.

"Not this time, beautiful." Atton said. "It's… too late."

"No!" she whispered harshly. "I…_will_… fix you."

They lie on their sides, facing each other, both dying slowly and praying for death as they clung to each other. Atton smiled, for the first time in his short life feeling wiser than the Exile.

"I won't let you… abandon your cause… for me." He smiled at her with so much kindness and love that her dying heart beat warmly in her chest in response. "You have… much to do, Exile."

"I'm dying… with you," she said through gritted teeth with a hard determination. She reached to touch his cheek to deliver the last of her strength to him, but this time he was ready and with the last of the strength she had given him, held her off.

"No, beautiful," he said kindly, weakly. "Maybe… just this once…it's my turn…to save you…. You gave me… everything. Now… maybe… I can finally… give you something back…"

With that, the life in his eyes went out and his hand, which had been holding her face, dropped as if in slow motion to the bloody ground. She felt his loss echo unavoidably and torturously in her heart. It was too much. She lost consciousness immediately, unable to deal with his loss, and not caring at all what happened to her at that moment.

Her companions found her soon after Atton passed, curled up beside Atton's body, soaked in his blood, and so pale and cold that they assumed her dead…

She was frighteningly close to death. Bao-Dur feared that they would not be able to bring her out of her coma, and they all knew that their effort was the only thing keeping her heart beating, for she had given up completely: betrayed by her master, having just lost the love she never really knew she had…

But he had died doing the one thing he had never been able to do. Finally, she was alive thanks to him, could say that she would save the Republic – and the world as it was known – because of him. Months later, years, decades later, she would still feel his relief in joy through the Force that he had, in a way, saved her. She did not take her life for granted; it had been his final gift to her.

_Lights will guide you home_

_And ignite your bones_

_And I will try _

_To fix you_

- - - - - -

A/N: Bah. That was painful to write. I would really appreciate feedback and reviews, though I don't expect any, really. I hope you enjoyed that. I don't like writing depressing things but I think the thing about Atton's death (that was, coincidentally, deliberately cut from the game because the writers didn't want him to die, so I don't really count it as canon, except the fact that he confesses his love for the Exile…) is that it shows how poignantly he loved the Exile. All through the game all we ever really get about him is that he's this scoundrel with a real dark past who has a serious crush on the Exile, but we also get a sense that he really loves her and wants her to love him back… I don't know. I'm rambling. Reviews?


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